Chapter 8: Interlude – In which the thoughts of Rabanowicz are related.

87th of Winter, 629

Today, as is usual these last few weeks, the company of Hans marched closer to the capital. I estimate that we should arrive there in a week or so if nothing goes wrong. That uncivilized captain may be overly harsh against his equally uncivilized men, but he is effective in terms of making them march properly at the least.

At noon, Hans ordered the men to stop and setup camp. Apparently, he wanted to “receive blessings from the local temple before going to glorious campaign against the perfidious heathens” but he most likely wanted to sample the ale of this region outside the capital – which even back in my home I heard was the best beer in the continent. There the company and I chanced upon a “heathen” from far away who wanted to convert to their faith. I couldn’t clearly see the foreigner from far-away during the procession, but word spread quickly about the man who was tasked by his lord to learn about Brassicanism.

About the foreigner, I heard that he had the darkest hair that anyone had ever seen, that his eyes were shaped differently in a way that was indescribable and that he had teeth whiter than the finest ivory. While such rumors tend to be exaggerated, especially ones which spread around camp, I was still curious but missed the opportunity as the man was escorted to the captain’s camp before I could do anything.

After the conversion ceremony for the heathen, a curious incident happened where about a dozen men, at the same time, came to me complaining about having difficulty breathing. Their skin also looked red and irritated, though other than that they didn’t seem to be at immediate mortal danger. After giving them a remedy of salt water and burning some incense to help their breathing, I heard men in the distance shout as they voiced various profane curses due to the taste of the beer they were drinking. With the help of one of the men I had just given treatment to, I found a barrel supposedly containing beer and opened it, only to smell soggy gunpowder. After a bit of detective work, we found out that fiendish Boris, who was responsible for stocking the beer today, had decided to fill the barrels he thought was empty with the beer.

For wasting my precious time and for wasting equally precious ale, the captain made a decision that I wholly agree on: Boris personally received thirty lashings from the captain, and also had his week’s pay docked.

As there were no more interesting incidents after the righteous lashing of Boris, I spent the rest of the day as usual reading some chapbooks I bought from the merchants in the camp. Most of them turned out to be utterly lowbrow as usual. That “real” tale of the criminal was uninspiring and clearly intended to only shock the ignoramus with its audaciousness, the ballads only made me think about where they keep finding these maidens in love and the ones with “comedy” somehow managed to be cruder than the soldiers listening to them.

At least the soldiers who listened to me read these were entertained enough, and I got back all the money I had spent on these worthless papers.

I was tired after having spent my time reading such worthless drivel, and planned on spending the night without work and instead spend it in deep sleep. The captain apparently had other plans though, and he stomped in drunk in the middle of the night, telling me that he wanted to listen to the next chapter of The Saga of Egilhard. No matter how many times I told him that it wasn’t ready, and that I hadn’t written it yet, he told me he wanted to read whatever I had written already. I had to oblige to avoid the captain’s wrath, lest I go the way of Boris, so I followed him into the tent.

In the tent I also saw, what I presume is, the foreigner who I can’t remember the name of while writing this. I read the novel to the captain, making an impromptu ending for it so that he’d stop bothering me about it. I also carefully observed the foreigner man, who seemed to enjoy the lowbrow romance as much as the captain. I was surprised to see that the rumors about him were true from what I could make out in the dark, his hair basically blended with the lightless environment, his eyes were unlike anything I had observed before and his white teeth (actually, thinking about it now, they are probably dentures made out of metal or ivory, for it is impossible for man to have such white teeth) shined even in the dark.

His countenance has made me remember a book that I bought a few weeks ago. I’ll have to take a look at it again to make sure if this man fits the descriptions found in that book. I can’t sleep soundly without figuring out where this suspicious character might come from.

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